Forget Captain Corelli's Mandolin (which I do accept is jolly good) this, his first novel, is de Bernieres' best. I am not quite clear whether this is magic realism because all that Genre Studies stuff confuses me, but what I do know is that it contains quite the best description of depression I have ever read.
The two ideologies fought full-scale set-piece battles in his mind, and he drew further and further away from that clarity of vision which he had carried with him all his life. He looked back at that vision with regret and nostalgia, but also thought of it as a time of immaturity. Like all intelligent men who no longer know what to think, he sank into a depression so paralysing that he became estranged from himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment